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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Discussion Less CGI in EP7: and how it may change the look of Sci-Fi movies for the rest of the decade.

Discussion in 'Archive: Disney Era Films' started by L0RD VADER, Jul 31, 2013.

  1. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    Because if they do them all the same it will look like one big indecipherable blob of tan. You put different colors in there to discern one person from the next and so on. It's not meant to be color coordinated with the Tatooine fashion scene. It's done that way so it reads to the camera(and our eyes) as it whizzes by for a second.
     
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  2. Beezer

    Beezer Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 5, 2013
    George Lucas was obsessed with being on the cutting-edge of movie effects, so he totally overdid the CGI in the PT. I understand that when we have a scene in Palpatine's office that the action outside the window has to be CGI, but seriously, there's no reason why you can construct the office itself as a movie set instead of making the entire thing (walls, floors, light fixtures) all CGI.

    Too much CGI takes the viewer out of the world too easily, and diminishes the quality of the movie. Padme falls out of the Republic Gunship, hits the soft sand ground and rolls over a few times. So when she stands up and there's not a single grain of sand on her body, it takes you out of the world you're immersed in.
     
  3. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    But what does that have to do with CG per se and not just bad execution of fx period?

    People sometimes forget the loads of cheesy movies with practical fx in them.

    It's not really the technique so much as its execution.

    And by the way, that sand dune shot where she rolls and gets up.....that was an actual stage insert scene they shot with her. The surroundings were CG but not the actual dune she fell onto. That was................practical. :eek:

    See, it's not really a "CG takes you out of the experience compared to practical" issue at all. It's really good planning and execution, both of which were done poorly in the PT in some cases.
     
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  4. Beezer

    Beezer Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 5, 2013
    Because when the actors are surrounded by nothing but CGI, they just don't interact with their surroundings the way they should. It gets pretty tedious the number of scenes where the characters are just slowly walking along, then they stop, face each other, then turn and continue slowly walking along. As someone in this thread mentioned, the scenes on Tatooine and Naboo are the best because they actually use real life sets and backgrounds.
    I'm not sure this is accurate. I'd have to see what you're talking about before buying it.
     
  5. FRAGWAGON

    FRAGWAGON Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 3, 2012
    And the office set was a set, Beezer. Out the window on the other hand....exactly as you like it :)
     
  6. Beezer

    Beezer Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 5, 2013
    Not all of it. The desk and chairs (foreground) were real, but much of the background and lights and things like that were CGI.
     
  7. Dranem

    Dranem JCF Banner Contest Winner star 1 VIP - Game Winner

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2012
    Personally I just want to see better CG which we most certainly will as well as top notch traditional effects. I just wonder if the internet were around in its present form back when Star Wars came out in '77 there would be message board outbursts like, "We need more in camera cuts and poofs of smoke in the next movie like in the old days! You could tell when someone was using magic, then!" or, "The stop motion on those AT-AT's was too smooth. We need the jilty moves and classic style of King Kong to pay homage to the past!"

    I respect the hell out of VFX artists (being an artist myself) but one thing I've always hated is people criticizing the medium instead of the method its used. I had a graphic design teacher that constantly bashed computer aided programs because they were not tactile. If she could she would have made sure the industry still cut out typography with xacto knives and used printing presses for embossery.

    Having the best model maker, digital artist, puppeteer, CG animator, etc. doesn't mean anything if they aren't given the time and resources to execute their craft in the context of the story they are supporting. We need to worry less about the "how" of the VFX process of the ST and more about the "why" that will be the catalyst for it.
     
  8. HankSolo

    HankSolo Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 3, 2012
    I agree. I think I would put it as "CGH should ADD to the plot, not SUBSTITUTE for it."
     
  9. Pfluegermeister

    Pfluegermeister Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 30, 2003
    In all honesty, none of us would even BE complaining about the CGI in the prequels if it had been done properly. But the technology was too new, the operators too inexperienced, the result too over-animated in the case of CGI creatures and too under-realistic in the case of CGI environments and landscapes. The Geonosis environments were the flat-out worst offenders in this regard; exactly what held LFL back from driving out to a nearby desert with a Mars-like surface and shoot at least some of the Geonosis sequences there with a red filter over the camera lens? Undoubtedly there would still need to be digital extensions on any landscape they shot at, but at least it would have been more effective, the lighting and environment more realistic, and Samuel L. Jackson and company would have looked like they were REALLY IN A DAMNED DESERT.

    So let's make my meaning perfectly clear: when I say "less CGI," I'm not advocating a return to painted mattes, or any other outdated technique that some would think I prefer simply because it was used in the OT; I'm advocating a measured approach to CGI. I'm advocating them using a desert and THEN adding digital extensions, for instance. I'm advocating using actual guys in clone trooper costumes in the foreground and THEN adding digital troopers for the distant background. I'm advocating RESTRAINT; I'm NOT advocating a reverse course thirty years in the backward direction of effects technology. And by the way, restraint is a realistic request to make from the people who defined the gold standard of visual effects for decades; it's not being stubborn or old-fashioned.

    What's fortunate for all of us in this is that, for the present, all the people involved (in particular Kathleen Kennedy) seem to be saying the right things: that effects take a back seat to the story, not the reverse; that a balance between effects styles seems to be the right approach; etc. And, better still, I think they're more than aware of what the fan audience expects from them, and that they'll be held to account AGAIN if they fail. This time they KNOW there are people who will give their work extremely close scrutiny, and that it had best be able to stand such scrutiny. Nobody at LFL wants ANOTHER fan backlash, and so far they seem determined to avoid one if they can.
     
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